


Dreams

by marececilys



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: F/M, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 02:09:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5029612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marececilys/pseuds/marececilys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"People dream about strange things. We dream of the future. We dream of the past. We dream in spaces where time and logic do not exist. We dream of possibilities. We dream of could-have-been’s. Some say our dreams are our greatest desires. Some say they are what we fear the most. Most believe that what we dream says something important about us, that they reveal things hidden inside. But sometimes, our dreams are just flashes of light and noise, thoughts and images to drown out the darkness that hides from us when we’re awake. Dreaming is our minds way of filling the silence when we sleep.<br/>Jace Wayland remembered every single one of his dreams."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> this was pretty short, but really angsty. hope you enjoy!

 

> _‘“The boy never cried again. And he never forgot what he learned: That to love is to destroy, and to be loved is to be the one destroyed.”_
> 
> _Clary, who had been lying still, hardly breathing, rolled onto her back and opened her eyes. “That’s an_ awful _story,” she said indignantly._
> 
> _Jace had his legs pulled up, chin on his knees. “Is it?” he said ruminatively._
> 
> _“The boy’s father is horrible. It’s a story about child abuse. I should have known that’s what Shadowhunters think a bedtime story is like. Anything that gives you screaming nightmares-”_
> 
> _“ **Sometimes the Marks can give you screaming nightmares”, said Jace, “If you get them when you’re too young**.”’ _ (Cassandra Clare, City of Bones)
> 
>  

People dream about strange things. We dream of the future. We dream of the past. We dream in spaces where time and logic do not exist. We dream of possibilities. We dream of could-have-been’s. Some say our dreams are our greatest desires. Some say they are what we fear the most. Most believe that what we dream says something important about us, that they reveal things hidden inside. But sometimes, our dreams are just flashes of light and noise, thoughts and images to drown out the darkness that hides from us when we’re awake. Dreaming is our minds way of filling the silence when we sleep.

Jace Wayland remembered every single one of his dreams.

They were almost always of his father. And they were almost always nightmares.

Every night, he would lay awake, dreading the dreams that would come, until the shadows would sing him to sleep and he had no choice but to live them again. He could feel everything as clearly as the first time it had happened. The pain, the images. A fist here. A bruise there. The raised voice that would always let him know when a blow was coming. The tears. The shame. Runes, put on him too young, that made him feel like he was being ripped apart from the inside out. A dead falcon. His father’s disappointment. He heard his own empty voice promising to be better, to try harder. He saw the image that woke him every night, a mixture of relief and fear in knowing it was the last one, but still the one that hurt the most: his father, lying in a pool of his own blood, dead and gone without another word to ever escape his lips. The crushing realization that he had nothing left.

And then he would wake up, only to find that the silence of the dark was heavier than the screaming of his dreams. He would toss and turn until morning came, or until sleep, unperturbed, would find him again, this time mercifully without any dreams at all. Coming out of that kind of dreamless sleep were the times that Jace felt safest, when his mind was too tired to be thinking anything at all. Emptiness and meaninglessness were the only defenses he had.

Even though he knew the Lightwoods meant him no harm, he never told them about his dreams. Not even Alec. He was afraid that if he spoke them out loud, they would suddenly become more real. And they would no longer be  _his_. However awful the dreams were for him, they were all he had that he could call his own. There was a comfort in knowing that no one else ever had to know what went on inside his head. And no one ever would know. If they did, they wouldn’t understand.

How could they understand how the person he had loved most was the person that made him want to die?

 

 

> _‘“Do you remember the song you used to sing Isabelle and Alec-when they were little and afraid of the dark- to get them to fall asleep?”_
> 
> _Maryse appeared taken aback. What are you talking about?”_
> 
> _…“It was in French,” Jace said. “The song.”_
> 
> _“I don’t know why you’d remember something like that.” She looked as if he’d accused her of something._
> 
> _“You never sang to me.”_
> 
> _There was a barely perceptible pause. Then, “Oh, you,” she said. “You were never afraid of the dark.”_
> 
> _“What kind of ten-year old is never afraid of the dark?”’_

 

> _““There was very little light in the room now, and in the dimness Maryse looked to him almost as she had when he was ten years old, as if he had not changed at all in the past seven years. She looked severe and worried, anxious- and hopeful. She looked like the only mother he’d ever known._
> 
> _“You were wrong that I never sang it to you,” she said. “It’s just that you never heard me.”“_ (Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes)
> 
>  

Maryse Lightwood knew Jace was hiding something. She could see it every time she looked in his eyes. There was a pain there, the kind of pain no one his age should have. She didn’t know what had happened in his past, if all of this was a result of finding his dead father, or something more. But she could see it in the way he held himself, in the way he flinched whenever someone raised their voice, as if expecting to be hit. She could see it in his lack of trust. In her and everyone else he had met since he stepped off the ship from Idris. It was this lack of trust that held her back, made her go against every motherly instinct and keep her distance. She didn’t want to force him into trusting her. He seemed so fragile, she was afraid that if she held him, he would break. It was this reason that when she found herself walking the halls at night, unable to sleep for one of her many reasons, she would stop by his door and watch him sleep. It was then that she allowed herself to love him. It was the only time that she could love him without hurting him. He looked so peaceful, less like an animal on the run and more like a bird frozen in midflight, too high for anything to touch it. So badly would she long to wake him up from his sleep and put her arms around him to reassure him that everything would be okay. But she never took the risk, she never invaded, she only watched him from the sidelines, hoping that perhaps, one day, Alec and Isabelle and Max could give him the kind of love that didn’t have to be hidden. If he let her, maybe she could give him that one day, too. She often found herself singing the song she sang to all her other children when they couldn’t sleep, quietly, so that he wouldn’t hear:

_“Chante rossignol, chante_  
 _Toi qui a le coeur gai_  
 _Tu as le coeur à rire_  
 _Moi je l'ai à pleurer_  
 _Il y a longtemps que je l'aime_  
 _Jamais je ne l'oublierai._ ”

_(Sing, nightingale, sing_  
 _You with your carefree heart_  
 _Your heart feels like laughing_  
 _Mine feels like weeping_  
 _I have loved you for a long, long time_  
 _Never will I forget you._ )

**Author's Note:**

> check me out on tumblr @heronwaylightstern


End file.
